Working
Groups
This Action will bring together Chronic GvHD (cGvHD) researchers across Europe for the first time, creating a network of cross-disciplinary experts in the field.
Working Group 5
Immunotherapy
Lead
Prof Marit Inngjerdingen
Country
Norway
mariti@medisin.uio.no
Vice Lead
Ulrike Koehl
Country
Germany
Koehl.Ulrike@mh-hannover.de
Overview
Patients with cGvHD (30-50%) can become refractory to standard therapy, new treatment options and the assessment of current novel therapies are urgently needed to improve the long term outcome and quality of life. In this Working Group the Action will bring together experts in cGVHD and clinical trial development, especially in the realm of cellular therapies with the aim of developing concepts for new approaches including personalized approaches to therapy.
Objective
Investigation of immunotherapeutic challenges for the treatment of cGvHD resistant to conventional therapy.
Task 1
To survey existing and newly developed immunotherapeutic options for the treatment of cGvHD including monoclonal antibodies, ATMPs, and exosomes.
Task 2
One meeting/year will be organized in order to harmonize good manufacturing practice (GMP) protocols for immunotherapy trials for cGvHD in Europe and to assess efficacy/safety criteria in both pre-clinical models and clinical scenarios
Task 3
To define hurdles in immunotherapy trials and to develop an on-line toolbox of documents and Training Schoolsin order to standardise quality control for the use of novel therapies e.g. antibodies ATMP’s and exosomes.
Task 4
To assess and refine pre-clinical animal models for cGvHD to test efficacy of various immunotherapeutic strategies including ATMPs.
Task 5
To survey established and recently defined pathophysiologic mechanisms involved in development of cGvHD that provide a rationale for selection of different immunotherapeutic strategies in individual patients.
Task 6
To survey established and recently developed markers for immune monitoring during and after immunotherapy
Milestones
Report – Survey data on various immunotherapy trials for cGvHD treatment Workshop on advanced personalized immunotherapeutic medicine for both the scientific and public community
Report -Survey data on pathophysiological aspects of cGvHD
Report- Survey data on immune monitoring during immunotherapy.
Deliverables
Report -Harmonized guidelines for both GMP manufacturing and quality control of cGvHD therapy e.g. antibodies, ATMPs and exosomes
On-line Training Schools regarding safety issues/side effects of novel immunotherapeutic strategies.
On-line tool box of documentation re quality control for the use of novel therapies
Report-Harmonized guidelines for immune monitoring during immunotherapy Six STSMs across the Working Group
Get involved with this Working Group
If you wish to join this Working Group, please email admin.cost17138@ncl.ac.uk or one of the leads.
Other working groups
Biomarkers
This Working Group will assess the type and amount of biomarker information which is currently available in the literature and assess those which are worthy of further validation and study.
Socioeconomics/Quality of life
CGvHD is a long term complex disease which has several co-morbidities and as such impacts on the quality of life of patients. By studying the societal impact of the disease via documented quality of life assessments, including reduced working days due to hospital stays, EUROGRAFT will allow an improved assessment of the burden on society of cGvHD at both the individual and European level.
NIH Consensus
The NIH consensus criteria needs to be implemented uniformly if diagnosis and treatment of
cGVHD is to be optimized. The aim of this Working Group will be to aid in both the understanding and
implementation of the NIH Consensus via Training Schools and workshops.
See Also
Find out more about the Action by exploring the site links on the right hand side.
